DIY projects around the home

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Garage Storage Solutions

To this bare wall, we added a 10″ shelf and pegboard to neatly store items that were strewn around our garage.

TK and I have been working together the past few weekends trying to get the garage cleared out and organized enough to actually use for our cars this winter. We sold a couple of items on Craigslist, donated some things to Goodwill and are trying to organize the rest. The garage is 24′long x 22′wide. The goal is to accommodate 2 cars, a snowblower, a lawn mower, power tools, lumber, 3 bikes, firewood, two large town-owned trash/recycling bins, and gardening tool and supplies…AND two cars. It’s hard to believe but we are almost there!

A 10′ x 12″ piece of pine + shelf brackets = a sturdy and useful storage shelf for the garage.

We attached the braces to the board with 3/4′ wood screws, marking the screw holes first. Then, using a level, simply attached the shelf with brackets to the wall. The shelf is high and I can barely reach it, but I’m short, so no big surprise there. We needed ample room under the shelf for the pegboard. The wood and braces for this shelf were two of only three things we had to buy for this project! The wood was around $23 at Home Depot and the braces were $5.99 each from Ace Hardware. Coupons made the expense of the latter easier to swallow.

I was thrilled to find enough pieces of leftover 2×3 board to hang the pegboard.

The wall is sheetrocked due to fire code so we couldn’t just attach the pegboard to any exposed wall joists. You need a space behind the pegboard for the hooks. I was prepared to chop up leftover lengths of 8′ 2×3 boards to use for the hangers, when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a box with leftover, already-chopped pieces of 2x3s, hoarded from another project! This saved us a lot of time and mess.

Frame out the space where you want to hang the pegboard with pieces of 2×3, then, using 1″ screws, attach the pegboard.

The 2×3 pieces are attached with 2 1/2″ screws to the wall joists. We would have done better to use 3″ screws but we didn’t have any. You could also frame the perimeter of the pegboard pieces with 2x3s, or even 1x3s, and attach it to the wall directly. I would do this if I were attaching an 8×12 sheet to a wall. With the smaller pieces of pegboard it would be overkill, in my opinion. Plus, the additional supports would plug up operative pegboard holes.

The lovely and talented, Hilary, a friend at work, donated the pegboard for our garage project-and brought it to me at work and helped me load it into my car. Thank you Hilary! I owe you a major haul of perennials These are used sheets of pegboard that Hilary’s parents rescued from a store that went out of business. It’s really good, heavy-duty stuff–and colorful, as you will see.

The last thing we bought was a variety pack of pegboard hooks from Ace Hardware for around $10.